Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“Women?” I repeated, amused by the plural.
“Noemi and Destiny!”
I took a sip of terrible coffee and pondered my answers. “My ex-wife is living her best life, and my client is doing what I’m asking.”
“She looks just beautiful with her dark hair,” my mom said enthusiastically. She loved teen shows. Disney, Nickelodeon, the CW. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d watched Magical Melody when it aired.
“I’ll tell her you said so. She’s finishing up a movie that might lead to her getting more parts.”
Unless this Geoffrey bullshit torpedoes her career.
I took another sip of coffee and winced at the thought of the story breaking into the mainstream news. My mom seeing it.
“And I love that she and Michael are together,” my mom went on.
For a minute, my mind blanked. “Who the hell is Michael?” I blurted out before I remembered that Michael had been the name of Andrew Quinn’s character. The older brother’s friend. “Sorry, sorry, I remember.” I waved away the start of my mom’s explanation.
The doctors Thompson exchanged bemused glances as I choked my way through the cup of coffee.
“Is everything okay, son?” my dad asked after a moment. “You don’t seem like yourself.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” I flagged down the waitress for more coffee.
Ironically for septuagenarians who couldn’t commit to retiring, my parents always thought I was working too hard. They had different ideas about how I should go about working less, though. My dad wanted me to stop crisis managing altogether and write another book. My first, Uncancelled, had been a New York Times bestseller. My mom wanted me to take a year off altogether and travel.
She didn’t understand that there was nowhere I wanted to go. Nowhere that was better than my canyon bungalow.
Predictably, after we ordered, my dad asked about how the next book was coming along. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t, and that I was toying with the idea of returning the advance, so I told him it was fine.
Predictably, my mom wanted to know whether Noemi and I had finally realized we were meant to be together after all. This I did have the heart for, and I told her Noemi was getting married next month in Turks and Caicos.
“To you?”
“No, Mom,” I stifled a laugh. “Not to me. We tried that, remember?”
“No,” she said pointedly. “I don’t.”
Noemi and I had gotten married on a whim. Driven out to Vegas and returned with cheap gold bands that rubbed green rings around our fingers. My mom has never gotten over it. I don’t even think she’d care if we got divorced again as long as she got to see the wedding this time. “Sorry, Mom,” I offered for the millionth time.
“We talked about this, honey,” my dad murmured.
I looked out the window, fighting the grin that tugged at the corners of my mouth, and listened to him counsel her through what he called a destructive cycle. My parents would never change, and I was glad.
“I’m sorry, Garrett,” my mom said a few minutes later, her voice clear and contrite.
“You’re fine, Mom. I’ll invite you to the next one, I promise.” I covered her hand and was almost sorry myself. My mom wanted to see me get married. Preferably to Noemi, but she’d take any nice woman who made me happy. But I’d meant every word of that toast with Dominic. Marriage was something that happened to other people, but not to me.
Never to me.
18
DESTINY
On my first trip to New York to visit Andrew, I thought he was too much of a gentleman to make a move.
At the end of my second trip, I made it for him. While we were sitting on the couch one night after a public dinner date, I leaned in and kissed him, hoping to feel the same jolt that had zipped through me when Garrett kissed me. When Garrett held his arms out for me to step into. When Garrett just looked at me.
It never came.
I kept my lips determinedly pressed to his, but time wasn’t helping. It was like kissing my brother. I opened my eyes to see Andrew looking back at me. Patient. Kind. After a long, awkward moment of eye contact, I felt his mouth curve under mine. Suddenly we were both laughing.
“Was it good for you?” I asked, pulling back. When Andrew only laughed harder, I whacked him with a throw pillow.
“It reminded me of our kiss on the show,” Andrew said when he could talk again. “I kept waiting for someone to call ‘cut.’”
I waited for the embarrassment I knew I should feel to roll over me, but strangely, all I felt was relief. Andrew was as uninterested in me as I was in him. I didn’t have to try to convince myself to fall for him because there would be nowhere to fall to.